


A Favor For Gloriana - At the Candlemark Past Midnight

by elrhiarhodan



Series: Gloriana'Verse [6]
Category: Elizabeth (Movies), White Collar
Genre: Alternate Universe - Elizabethan Era, Alternate Universe - Historical, Elizabethan, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Major Illness, Romance, Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-28
Updated: 2013-11-28
Packaged: 2018-04-10 12:01:44
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,826
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4391108
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elrhiarhodan/pseuds/elrhiarhodan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Early Elizabethan Era Historical A/U - Peter Burke works for Sir Francis Walsingham, the Queen’s Spy Master, Elizabeth Burke is the Queen’s Mistress of the Revels and Neal Caffrey is a ne’er-do-well artist and courtier, incarcerated in the Fleet Prison for debt. The golden age has yet to flower in Merry Old England, and it’s going to take a deft hand to manage all the players that will keep Good Queen Bess on the throne.</p><p>Neal falls ill, and Peter refuses to leave his side, staying up all night, for three nights, to care for him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Favor For Gloriana - At the Candlemark Past Midnight

**Author's Note:**

> Originally published as a chapter to the first story, I have decided to repost the chapters individually. Please note the original publication date has been set for this entry.

**October, 1573**

The room was too hot, too bright and Peter didn't know what to do.

It had started with a sneeze. No, actually, it had started with a sudden icy downpour. They'd been on their way back from Windsor and a meeting with Walsingham. Another job well done, another threat to Her Majesty's reign eliminated. Another accolade given.

He was now Lord Peter Burke, Baron of Carlise. Neal Caffrey was still Neal Caffrey, indentured servant and all too handsome artist and ne'er-do-well, but also a favorite of Elizabeth Regina - more for his cleverness with a brush and canvas than for his deeds of bravery.

It was early October, just past Michaelmas, a little more than five years to the day that Peter had bought Caffrey's debt and taken him out of the Fleet. They'd been five good years, coupled with way too many disasters. He'd even ended up in London Tower, charged with the murder of a certain duplicitous Baron, Terrance Pratt, who had done his best to try to discredit him in the eyes of the Queen. When the baron was found with Peter's own dagger buried his heart after they'd argued quite publicly, the Royal Guard took him to the great fort on the banks of the Thames. He was a commoner, and would have had his neck severed with an axe, if not for Caffrey's own cleverness.

Peter never inquired too closely about just what Neal had done to secure his freedom. The Queen knew he was innocent, Walsingham knew too, but Pratt had allies, amongst them the French Ambassador, who was a key player in securing the peace the Queen so desperately needed on the Continent. And those allies had been calling for Peter's blood. How dare a commoner, no matter how honored by the Queen, take the life of a nobleman? How dare he go unpunished?

But that was in the past, just one of the disasters he'd skirted, thanks to Caffrey.

And none of that mattered to him now. Neal had taken a chill, drenched during that storm. He'd shrugged it off for a few days, refusing to take it easy, to stay indoors, by the fire.

Peter could even hear Neal's voice, the laughter, the light mockery. "What, I never get sick! And I'm certainly not going to act like an old man, too feeble to wipe my arse."

"You're exaggerating, Caffrey. There's no need to go out."

"Oh, but there is. I need to get …"

Neal enumerated a dozen different things he had to do, silly tasks that probably covered some of his still-illegal habits. And he was probably meeting with his friend, Moz, the small, bespectacled man who'd been his companion in the Fleet. Peter had been grateful to that odd gentleman - it was his intelligence that led the first to the evidence that secured Norfolk's arrest in the Ridolfi Plot. And of course, he had been grateful to Moz for helping Neal stay alive while he'd been incarcerated.

So, Peter hadn't interfered, he hadn't locked Neal down, made him stay home and out of the suddenly cold weather when he was so clearly flirting with illness.

And they were both paying the price.

Three nights ago, Neal had been dancing attendance on the daughter of the Duke of Suffolk, a man with dangerously Scottish leanings. Peter watched from the perimeter, as Neal acted his part. Of course, there was no way that the girl would give him more than a moment of her time. Caffrey might be the most gorgeous man to stalk the corridors at Whitehall, but he was - for all intents and purposes - without a name. No highborn maiden would grant him leave to pay suit to her, even if her father allowed him into her ambit.

But Caffrey knew how to work people, how to get them to talk, to become indiscreet without ever realizing it. Peter had given him full rein, but kept a very close eye on the pair. It wouldn't do for Suffolk to get suspicious of the handsome young artist, so clearly in the Queen's favor.

Neal paid court to Suffolk's daughter, he fetched her honeyed mead and small delicacies, all the while looking like he'd soon as collapse as dance the Volta. Peter, who was sounding out one of Suffolk's vassals about his feelings towards the return of Mary Stuart to Edinburgh, couldn't keep an eye on Neal and carry his end of the conversation.

It was only when a feminine cry cut through the music did Peter realize that Neal had taken a bad turn. He'd performed the intricate dance, lifting the girl and stamping and clapping in time with the drumbeats, but while making the customary bow after the dance concluded, he simply keeled over.

The rest of the court, naturally fearful that any illness could be the plague, gave the collapsed figure of Neal Caffrey a wide berth, but Peter rushed through the crowd, only to find Neal sprawled across the stone floor, pale but for the fever flags on his cheeks, his curls soaked from sweat.

Their relationship - not that they were bedmates - but that Peter held his indenture, was not known, but they'd been seen together often enough that most of the court figured that Peter Burke was Neal Caffrey's patron, and would see nothing odd about the man picking him up and carrying him out of the room - hell, carrying him out of the palace and down to a waiting river taxi.

That was three nights ago, and for those three nights and for the days in between, Peter refused to move from Neal's side as he tossed and turned in feverish delirium, as he labored for breath, as he burned with a terrible fever that Peter feared was going to be fatal.

The ever-faithful Clinton Jones had sent for a barber-surgeon, who confirmed that it wasn't the plague or smallpox, but putrid humors in the blood. The man was an incompetent fool who bled Neal, insisting that it was necessary to release the feverish bile and restore the balance of the humors. Of course it didn't work and Neal became even weaker. The surgeon, whom Peter had banned from the house, claimed that his methods were most effective. Hadn't Caffrey become quiescent after the blood was removed? 

The damn fool couldn't see that he was killing Neal, weakening him almost to death.

It was too hot, too bright and Peter couldn't stand it any more.

He threw open the curtains and then the casement windows, allowing the clean, cool air to flow in and wash away the odors of sickness and sweat and fear.

Peter banked the fire, blew out all but a single candle used to mark the hour. The candle mark said it was after midnight, and the moon was high in the sky. Peter was exhausted but too terrified to sleep. He was afraid that if he took his eyes off of Neal, even for a moment, Neal's soul would take wing and fly to heaven.

He loved him so much, a love that defied god and his vows and even the laws of his Queen. But he didn't care. Neal was everything to him, and he wasn't going to let him go without a fight. He'd do battle with Archangel Michael himself if it meant keeping Neal alive and with him.

Unutterably weary, Peter went to the basin to dampen a clean cloth. He'd done this a hundred times over the past two days and nights, wiping away the sweat that poured off of Neal in his fever. But the basin was empty, as was the jug. He didn't want to leave the room, even for a moment, just to call for more water.

Hughes would be by soon enough. His manservant had taken a quiet liking to Neal. He didn't show him any particular favor - that wasn't the old man's way - but he approved of Neal, and saw that he was cared for just as well as the master of the house.

He went back to Neal's bedside. In the dim, flickering light, Neal looked almost translucent, as if he was barely constrained to this world, already halfway to heaven. Peter took the dry cloth and went to pat away the perspiration that was probably gathering on his cheeks, at the base of his throat. But the linen came away dry.

Peter blinked, not knowing if he should be terrified that Neal was too weak now to even sweat through his fever, or if the fever had broken. He pressed the back of his hand to Neal's brow. It wasn't cool, but it was cooler than it had been.

And maybe Neal's breathing seemed a touch less labored?

Peter pressed his ear against Neal's chest, listening for his heart. It still beat, a steady rhythm that sounded as powerful as a tocsin alerting everyone to danger. If Neal's heart was this strong, surely he wasn't dying.

He immediately rejected that thought, as he had so many times over the past few days. No, Neal couldn't be dying. He was too young, too vital. But Peter had seen men just as young, just as vital cut down by something as simple as a putrid throat. He rested his head there for a moment longer, just to remain close. It wasn't a comfortable pillow, but Peter closed his eyes, letting the sweet dream of other nights take hold, of more pleasurable exhaustion, of Neal whole and healthy and strong, his smile glimmering in the shadowed darkness of their bedchamber.

At first, he thought it was his dream, or those memories. Fingers carding through his hair, a gentle caress. But it wasn't his memories, it was Neal, who'd moved for the first time in a day.

"Peter?" His voice was weak, but Peter never thought he'd heard his name uttered so sweetly before.

He looked up, his heart struck with delight to see Neal's eyes open, the pale blue glowing in the candlelight.

"You look like Hell, master."

Peter smiled, "Only because you seem to enjoy putting me through it."

"I - I don't remember … what happened?"

"You collapsed most spectacularly at the Duke of Suffolk's rout three nights ago. I carried you out."

Neal gave him a weak version of his usual bright smile. "Always thought you were so strong. My master is so damn strong." Neal's eyelids fluttered closed and Peter's heart stopped for a moment. But Neal licked his lips. 

"Thirsty?"

"Yes, please."

"Hold on."

Peter got up and stepped into the hallway for the first time in what seemed like eons. He needed to find Hughes, get Neal some ale or cider or mead, water was unfit to drink.

But Peter didn't move. Overwhelmed by the sudden, unstoppable rush of emotion, he couldn't. He leaned back against the cool stone walls and let the tears fall. Tears of joy, of relief.

His heart lived.

__

FIN


End file.
